


Morning Sun

by darkwood



Series: One Friendly Star [1]
Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: Abbie POV, Comfort, F/M, Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-25
Updated: 2013-09-25
Packaged: 2017-12-27 14:05:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/979812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkwood/pseuds/darkwood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Over on Tumblr, <a href="http://quickbane.tumblr.com/post/62200509482/i-just-want-a-fic-where-abbie-and-ichabod-are">this</a> was mentioned.</p><p>After having watched 1x2, I couldn't help myself.</p><p>No real spoilers, though episode 2 knowledge is discussed here. Abbie POV, mostly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Morning Sun

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt from tumblr: 
> 
>  
> 
> _I just want a fic where Abbie and Ichabod are exhausted from fighting off the monster of the week, and Abbie is dropping Ichabod off at the hotel. She comes in and sits down, because damn that demon was scary. And she sits, and they talk while Ichabod putters around the hotel room._
> 
>  
> 
> _She watches as he unties his hair ribbon and starts brushing his hair because battles with demons make his hair a bird’s nest okay? And the motion is so relaxing that she falls asleep in the uncomfortable hotel chair._

 

         It was the sort of late that had turned into early. Somehow cases with Crane started at the ass-end of evening and ended at the crack of dawn. There was a lot of fire, and a lot of stone, and a lot of reasons she constantly thought of re-applying to Quantico.

 

         Nothing was this important.

 

         That wasn’t exactly true. If Crane was right, if this was really demons and the Four Horsemen and the endtimes… well, that was _this_ important.

 

         But right now it didn’t matter because _right now_ the sun was coming up, and that meant another day. It meant that all the darkness and the weirdness was behind them, that they were safe for another ten hours or so. 

 

         It was strange to think – that is, if anything could be strange anymore after headless portents of the apocalypse, undead witches, and demons from the dark beyond – that she had only just come to realize how much she longed for sunshine.

 

         Abbie turned the squad car into the hotel parking lot. It felt like she was spending more time going to and from this place than to and from home.

 

         “Miss Mills?” Crane asked. His voice was too gentle, sometimes, and this was one of those sometimes.

 

         “Yes?” Abbie asked, putting the car in park and turning off the engine.

 

         Crane didn’t answer. Abbie looked over at him, and he had the same contemplative look on his face that he did when he was thinking. She had tried, weeks ago now, to figure out what he was thinking when he looked like that. It hadn’t worked. She could barely wrap her mind around the need to struggle against forces that were beyond being affected by conventional means, let alone Crane’s fascination with modern objects and his semi-present visions of his possibly-dead wife.

 

         “My apologies,” he said, “I was uncertain if it was well advised for you to be operating this vehicle. You seemed lost in thought.”

 

         All Abbie could do to that was to snort. It wasn’t quite a laugh, but it was the best she could manage, given how tired she was starting to feel.

 

         He reached over and, rather delightedly, and unlocked the car door. Automatic locks were on his list of vanquished technology, and the novelty had still not worn off for him. “Well then,” he said rather cheerfully for someone who had gotten as little sleep as they had, “shall we go? My daytime prison awaits.”

 

         “I told you-” Abbie started, but it was no use, Crane was already out of the car.

 

         Trying not to scream in frustration, Abbie gripped the steering wheel. She noticed her hands were shaking, and tried not to think about the reason for it. She tried not to think about seared flesh and wounds open to burns that were _still burning_ , and-

 

         This sort of thinking was getting her nowhere. Abbie put her forehead on the steering wheel. If she killed Crane – she wondered, _could_ Crane even be killed? – would all of this stop? Or would she be without her only companion on this long, strange trip? It was a sobering thought. Being alone in this would be worse than listening to him complain about _anything_.

 

         And… he had a bit of a point about the hotel being another form of incarceration, anyway. He didn’t even argue about being brought back to it anymore. Not much anyway.

 

         Her door opened, startling her.

 

         “Miss Mills,” Crane said in that gentle voice that no soldier had a right to possess, and certainly not a champion in the fight against the apocalypse.

 

         “I’m coming,” Abbie replied, taking a deep breath as she unbuckled her seatbelt.

 

         She wasn’t even surprised when she looked up to find his hand outstretched to her. It wasn’t the first time they’d done this little ritual. It wasn’t the first dawn they’d returned to the hotel at this hour, either. Rather than comment on it, she took his hand and let him pull her out of the car. For a slender man, he was surprisingly strong.

 

         “As things stand, I cannot do without you,” Crane said. He offered something that was almost a smile as he said, “I have not the keys.”

 

         That got a little laugh out of Abbie, and she locked the squad car and lead the way up the steps to Crane’s hotel room. It wasn’t until she reached the door to his room that the shaking in her hands started again. She might not have noticed if the key to Crane’s room hadn’t fallen from her nerveless fingers. For a moment she stared at the door, and then looked down at the keys in frustration, huffing as she started to bend to reach them.

 

         Crane beat her to it. He scooped the keys up off the floor, took a single look at her, and reached forward to unlock the door himself. “Perhaps you would like to come inside,” he said, taking her hand to close the keys around it.

 

         “I really don’t think that’s a good-”

 

         But Crane had gone. He stepped past her into the hotel room and busied himself with turning on the light – again with obvious delight as he flicked the switch – and opening the curtains. Rather than stand awkwardly in the doorway, Abbie followed him.

 

         It felt good to be inside somewhere _normal_.

 

         It felt good to have a locked door between her and the outside.

 

         “Would you like coffee, Miss Mills?”

 

         The question interrupted her mind, but that was probably a good thing. “Coffee? I think I could do with some sleep.”

 

         “Try the coffee,” Crane insisted, flipping the pot on. “I’ve found it a comfort after… nights like these.”

 

         Abbie looked up, and for the first time she thought about him in regards to what they were going through. None of this could be easy for him, that would be an understatement, but he charged into tunnels and broke down walls with such a gusto that she hadn’t thought for a single moment that he might be as affected by it all as she was.

 

         “Alright,” she agreed. Staying didn’t have to be bad. She cast about for something to do. The coffee was still dripping into the tiny little cup, and Crane’s jacket was across one of the beds. Her only options were the second bed – situated far too close to the bathroom for her taste, something she hadn’t even noticed until she realized it was not the one he had chosen either – and an empty chair in the corner.

 

         Then there was nothing.

 

         Her hands started to shake and every time she blinked she saw those red eyes and that burned skin and-

 

         Across the room, Ichabod was washing the two little hotel cups in preparation for the coffee they were about to drink. He seemed absorbed by the task.

 

         “So you don’t get to sleep right away?”

 

         “It may have escaped your notice, Miss Mills,” Crane said, eyes still trained on the cups, “but we are in combat with forces I did not grow up believing in. Furthermore, when I sleep I often have rather vivid encounters with my wife.”

 

         “Your late wife.”

 

         “If the last encounter is to be believed, it is incorrect to assume she is late in any fashion. She is simply not present in a manner in which I can reach her,” Crane said. He set one of the cups on the edge of the sink, top down so that it could dry. “It would be hypocritical of me to assume her dead, given my circumstances.”

 

         “If you say so,” Abbie replied. She leaned back. “Two hundred and fifty years seems like a long time to be married.”

 

         “It is a long time to be separated,” Ichabod replied. “But, as I have said, I do not recall the long years of my… slumber.”

 

         That was certainly a long time… longer than the thing they had fought last night had been dead. Or was it undead? Abbie shivered.

 

         “She obviously had concerns beyond our life togther that were important to her,” Crane continued, “but I cannot expect her to act outside of her own conscience. She did what she believed was best, and what she thought was worthwhile.”

 

         “Who are you trying to convince with that?” Abbie asked. She sat up a little, latching onto the topic. It was better than worrying about something that ought to really be dead this time.

 

         “Be that as it may,” Crane said, ignoring her question, “I cannot act outside of mine. If anything can be done to retrieve Katrina from her imprisonment, I must attempt it.” He turned the second cup over on the edge of the sink with an air of finality to the little clack the molded plastic made.

 

         “You do realize that we’re fighting the end of the world?”

 

         “I am aware, Miss Mills,” Crane said. He stared at the sink for a moment. “But even in the greatest battles, one must act honorably.”

 

         Then he reached up and tried to untie his hair. The ribbon was stuck, knotted in the bird’s nest that it had become during the running and ducking from the dark hours behind them. Crane worked patiently at the fabric, staring at himself in the mirror as he did so. It was strange, seeing a man with that much hair. Abbie didn’t dislike it, but she still thought it was strange. Not quite as strange as what they’d gone chasing through the tunnels that night, but… still on the far side of normal.

 

         There seemed nothing more to say. Abbie looked over at the window. The sun was coming in more, now. It wasn’t dawn anymore, the sun was up and coming in through the curtains.

 

         “I would like to thank you,” Crane said.

 

         Abbie turned to look over at him. He’d gotten the ribbon free, and was working a comb through his hair. “For?”

 

         “Your notes,” he said, that quirk of an almost-smile on his lips again, “they have proven most… helpful.”

 

         That garnered a chuckle out of Abbie, and at a later time she  might appreciate that he still made her chuckle, though just then all she thought about was the way her back relaxed and her hands stopped shaking as she did it. “Well, I can’t exactly have you attracting flies, can I?”

 

         “I do not suppose that to be helpful to the comfort of those around me,” Crane replied. Abbie caught a blue eye looking over at her, and his lips quirked more firmly into the realm of smile as he said, “Though I do not anticipate it affecting our work.”

 

         “Demons not much for body odor?”

 

         “They are, generally, associated with brimstone.”

 

         “Brimstone?”

 

         Crane nodded. “If I am to believe what I thought unbelieveable, then yes, brimstone.”

 

         The noise of the little coffee machine stopped, and he set the comb down on the counter next to the sink in favor of the two little mugs he had washed. Abbie watched him, trying to notice something foreign in his movements, something that would mark him as strange or otherworldly or not to be trusted.

 

         There was nothing.

 

         He leaned over the countertop, and for a moment she wondered what exactly he was doing, until she saw the little straw stirring one of the cups. Finished, Crane lifted the cup carefully and came over to her. The sunlight hit him, and with his partly unbuttoned shirt, his pale skin shone. He bent down to offer her the cup, and as she took it, her eyes lingered on the scarred flesh that she could see through the open neck of his shirt.

 

         “Thank you,” Abbie mumbled, trying not to go blind from the brightness, and unable to prevent herself from staring at the marks on his skin.

 

         “You are welcome,” Crane replied. If he noticed her looking, he didn’t comment on it. He returned to the sink, doctored the second cup, and took a long sip before setting it down and retaking his comb.

 

         Abbie sniffed the cup she’d been handed. It smelled… correct. That was an odd way to think of it, but it was true. She took a sip and yes, he had fixed her coffee the way she did.

 

         Maybe that eidetic memory would come in handy, after all.

 

         “Though I fear it is nothing like one would expect from Starbucks.”

 

         Abbie chuckled again and settled back. The chair was uncomfortable, but she’d had worse. Suddenly it all felt heavy. Every part of her was sore or bruised and she weighed a thousand pounds, but it was alright. She was here, locked in a room with Ichabod Crane, and the sun was shining.

 

         It felt good not to have to worry who was listening in to her conversation with Crane.

 

         So… by some form or fashion… it felt good to be alone with Crane.

 

         Abbie rolled her eyes at herself, and made the mistake of closing them. The blink that followed was long, and was followed by a longer close of her eyes that turned into sleep without her even noticing it happening.

 

         Ichabod, however, was paying attention. He waited until her head tipped back, and her fingers started to go slack. Then he crossed the room and rescued the cup of coffee from her hand before it could tip over either on the rug or on her leg.

 

         She’d only had a sip, and she was sleeping.

 

         Well.

 

         He didn’t think he’d need his today either.

         


End file.
